Like Fathers like Sons: Theories on the Origins of the City in Late Medieval Florence

Accounts of the origins of a city are crucial to the development of the community's identity. By tracing the nature of their forefathers, the members of a social body establish a series of models and values to which they will constantly turn in times of war and peace. Because of their importance, theories concerning the foundation of a city are inevitably subject to continuous variations; their unending changes faithfully reflect the mutable features and goals of society. Such phenomena are common to all Italian cities of the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, a period when the communes of the peninsula freed themselves from the control of foreign emperors and ecclesiastic authorities before falling prey to the growing power of local families. Owing to her rich culture and distinctive political history, however, Florence provides a unique case for both a variety of approaches and an abundance of documents.¹

As all medieval chronicles report, the momentous legacy of ancient Rome has marked the history of Florence since her very foundation.² This feature, underscoring the love of liberty that Florentines have always believed to be peculiar to their people, is already clear in the anonymous Chronica de origine civitatis, the first known source concerning the origins of Florence.³ Composed between the end of the twelfth and the early years of the thirteenth century, the Chronica follows a typically medieval pattern in describing the beginning of the world before coming to relate the origins of Florence. This last section of the book is of fundamental importance for all later theories on the foundation of the city. There the author re-elaborates famous local legends and strives to validate them by resorting to equally well-known ancient sources. This explains why, despite several important additions and changes that I will point out in the course of this study, the account reported in the Chronica contains what will be the bulk of all the versions of the origins of Florence before the birth of humanism. For a clear understanding of this subject, it is thus necessary to report somewhat in detail the Chronica's account of the foundation of the city.

The Chronica connects the origins of Florence to two main factors: the existence of the nearby village of Fiesole and the suppression of Catiline's conspiracy by the best Roman generals in 63 BC.⁴ As regards Fiesole, the anonymous author writes that Atlas (whom he considers the first European king) founded this hamlet in a most wholesome place, chosen by his wise astronomer Apollo. After the foundation of Fiesole (the first city of all Europe, according to a conveniently biased etymology: "fiat sola") Atlas and his wife Electra are blessed with three children (all males, of course!): Italus, Dardanus, and Sicanus. As the youngest of the three brothers, Sicanus leaves his native Fiesole with a few men; he eventually arrives in Sicily, where he will rule as king. Italus and Dardanus, instead, interrogate the Gods about their destiny. The response is that Italus must remain in Fiesole and extend his rule over the neighboring regions, whereas Dardanus is to leave for a distant land. With a few select men, he thus takes to the sea and finally reaches the shores of Asia Minor. There he founds Troy—as Virgil himself attests (Aen. VIII.134–37)—on the site carefully chosen by his aged astronomer Apollo.

The deeds of Atlas's sons conveniently connect the history of Fiesole—and, consequently, that of Florence too, as we shall soon see—to the rest of Italy and to the Trojan myth, giving the two Tuscan cities at once a reason for cultural pride and a justification for territorial expansion. Moreover, within the economy of the Chronica Dardanus's foundation of Troy offers the anonymous author the opportunity to insert a digression on the war that caused the destruction of this noble Asian city and the famous facts that followed. In a very brief, almost annalistic style, he thus comes to touch upon Aeneas's travels, the foundation...